


Snips & Snails, & Puppy-dog Tails

by DebbieF



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Involves a downsized Daniel Jackson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 20:11:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DebbieF/pseuds/DebbieF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel + Temple = Trouble as usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snips & Snails, & Puppy-dog Tails

"Teal'c take point. Carter you take that hut over there while I try  
to grill the local yokels as to Danny's whereabouts."  
  
"Yes, sir. We'll find Daniel. He's probably studying something  
fascinating as we speak."  
  
"Indeed, O'Neill. It is like you said on many an occasion… Daniel  
Jackson needs a leash."  
  
"Let's go Danny hunting then, kids."  
  
None of them knew that they had been observed by a few children in a  
nearby hut.  
  
"What's going on, Aaron? Who are those people?"  
  
"If you would be still, Kess, I might be able to hear what the  
travelers are saying."  
  
"Just because you're older than me doesn't mean you can tell me what  
to do."  
  
"Will you be quiet?"  
  
"I've never seen such strange clothes before, Aaron."  
  
"They look familiar to me," said a third child.  
  
The other two children's attention turned toward their new companion.  
The boy had an abundance of light blond hair along with clear, sky  
blue eyes.  
  
Aaron and Kess knew that this one also didn't belong to their village  
but accepted his presence in their lives naturally. The children had  
dubbed the quiet youngster as _Blue,_ for obvious reasons.  
  
"Blue, do you think they are your parents because the woman looks as  
you do?"  
  
"I don't think so, Kess."  
  
"How would you know? Maybe you had an accident and can't remember  
anything," said Aaron.  
  
"That happened last year to our blacksmith when a horseshoe fell on  
his head."  
  
"Tess, be quiet." Aaron was getting annoyed with her chatter.  
  
"Don't have to listen to you, Aaron."  
  
Shoosh! Both of you. I'm trying to make out what the old man is  
saying." Blue closed his eyes as he concentrated on the voices  
outside their hut.  
  
"Why do you think he's old?" asked Tess.  
  
"Has to be. His hair is mostly all grey."  
  
"That other man is very dark. I never saw a man that color before,"  
stated Aaron.  
  
"Neither have I."  
  
"Who asked you, Tess?"  
  
She stuck out her tongue at the older boy while Blue rolled his eyes  
at her antics.  
  
++++  
  
"Dammit, Daniel! Where the hell are you?" Colonel O'Neill was wracked  
with guilt. Earlier that day he balled out his young archaeologist  
for lacking any sense of self preservation. The older team leader had  
thought he had gotten used to his errant young friend; today it had  
grated on his last never. He had shouted at the younger man and  
Daniel in turned stomped off on his own.  
  
"Still no luck, sir. How about you?"  
  
"Carter, I'm not a happy camper right now. Everybody I question says  
they've never seen him. It's my own damn fault this happened."  
  
"No sense beating yourself up about it, sir."  
  
"Easy for you to say, Carter," snapped the colonel.  
  
"Considering that the people who live in this village are darker in  
coloring, Daniel Jackson would, as you say, stick out in the crowd.  
It is most disturbing that the villagers have not seen our young  
friend."  
  
"Yeah, Teal'c. That's why I'm so worried."  
  
"Sir, you mean you feel he's not on the planet anymore?" Carter asked  
in alarm.  
  
"I don't know what to think at the moment, Carter. Teal'c and you  
have come up empty and I didn't do any better. Got any new theories  
up your sleeves? Because I got nada."  
  
Carter couldn't come up with anything to make her commanding officer  
feel better. She just hoped that wherever Daniel was that he was in  
one piece.  
  
Just then the colonel signaled to his team to be quiet. His keen  
sense of hearing had picked up on a small sound to his left. He  
turned just in time to see a small shape with blond hair zip by  
him. "Hey! Hold it!" Colonel O'Neill might have cruddy knees but he  
was still fast. He caught up to the little speed demon and reached  
out with a very long arm. "Gotcha!"  
  
The captured boy tried his best to wriggle out of the older man's  
iron grip to no avail. "Let me go! I'm no threat to you," he shouted.  
  
O'Neill could see the boy was no more than seven years old. "That  
remains to be seen, kid." The colonel looked over the scruffy urchin,  
a very blond, scruffy urchin. Add blue eyes to the mix and this  
scalawag resembled Daniel as a child. Couldn't be…c ould it? He looked  
closer into the young frightened eyes that beckoned him.  
  
SG-1's team leader thought to himself…what do I have and what do I  
need. One, I have a little boy who looks like Daniel did as a kid.  
Two, I need my archaeologist back. He'd be damned. His linguist was  
missing and up pops this little boy. What were the odds against  
something like this? This kid definitely didn't fit into the décor  
around here. Something nagged at the back of the colonel's overtaxed  
brain.  
  
"What's your name, son?"  
  
"Blue."  
  
"As in the color?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Do you live here, Blue?"  
  
"I'm not sure, sir."  
  
Well that raised the colonel's hackles. "Amnesia?"  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"Bad choice of words, kiddo." O'Neill released him and knelt by the  
young one's side. His warm brown eyes looked straight into innocent  
blue ones. The officer decided to try a test. "Daniel?"  
  
"Jack?" was the child's immediate response.  
  
"Shit!" He got the answer he sought and dreaded at the same time.  
  
"Carter… Teal'c! Get over hear pronto!"  
  
"Sir, did you find, Daniel?"  
  
"In a manner of speaking. Let me re-introduce you." Colonel O'Neill  
picked up his now youngest teammate and faced his fellow comrades.  
  
"Carter, Teal'c, I'd like to introduce you to _Blue_ , otherwise known  
throughout the galaxy as Doctor Daniel Jackson."  
  
"Holy Hannah!"  
  
"Indeed!"  
  
"I remember bits and pieces now. I guess seeing all of you brought up  
some suppressed memories."  
  
"What happened, Daniel?"  
  
"Did we have a fight, Jack?"  
  
"No more than usual, Daniel."  
  
"Riiiiight. Why do I think that there was more to it than that?"  
  
"Okay, I yelled…. a lot and then you marched off to parts unknown.  
Apparently Ponce de Leon isn't the only one who could go looking for  
the fountain of youth. But it looks like you fell into it, Danny boy."  
  
"Not really. More a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong  
time, Jack."  
  
"So, same ole, same ole then. Welcome to your life."  
  
"What do we need to do to get you back to normal?" asked Sam.  
  
Before the boy could answer her, the colonel still had to needle his  
best friend. "Tall order, Carter. You might get Daniel back to being  
six foot again, but _normal_ , that'll never happen in this lifetime."  
  
"Oh, I don't know about that, sir. Out of all of us, I think Daniel's  
the most normal?"  
  
The colonel just acknowledged her with a grunt. "Snips and snails,  
and puppy-dog' tails," he murmured quietly.  
  
"What are you talking about now, Jack?"  
  
"That's what little boys are made of," Jack finished. "It's just an  
old nursery rhyme that popped into my head when I first saw that you  
had turned into a munchkin.  
  
Daniel decided to take matters into his own hands and stomped on  
Jack's foot really hard.  
  
"Ow! That hurt. What cha do that for?"  
  
"I want to be made _big_ again. That's what I want to be made of, as  
if you damn well don't know it."  
  
"Language Daniel. You're too young to be cussing like that."  
  
"And you're enjoying this far too much, Jack. Who cares about dumb  
old nursery rhymes at a time like this!"  
  
"A guy's got to get his jollies somewhere."  
  
Daniel cast a desperate glance at Teal'c just then.  
  
"Daniel Jackson, where do you need to be?"  
  
"Thank you, Teal'c for seeing the bigger picture here. There's a  
temple near the entrance to the town. You guys had to have passed it  
on your way into the village so you must have seen it."  
  
"Had other pressing issues at the time, Danny."  
  
"Well I have to be in that temple before sunset."  
  
"Why, what happens then, Daniel? Does your carriage turn back into a  
pumpkin?"  
  
"Jaaaack! Please be serious for once in your life!"  
  
"Sorry." But Jack didn't sound a bit contrite.  
  
"I walked right in on a ritual of rejuvenation."  
  
"And walked right back out as _little boy Blue_ ," quipped Jack.  
  
Daniel closed his eyes in frustration and counted to ten in Egyptian.  
  
"I can't help myself. You know what I'm like in these types of  
situations, buddy."  
  
"Actually, no I don't. Never having been in this type of situation  
myself, how would I know your reactions?"  
  
Jack had noticed that they had lost a considerable amount of daylight  
already. "We better get crackin' and get you to that temple you're  
goin' on about."  
  
With a deep sigh of relieve, Daniel felt the tension drain  
away. "Thank you, Jack."  
  
++++  
  
It was a far cry as temples go, SG-1 had seen better in their  
travels. While they entered the structure, Daniel tried his best to  
explain what had taken place inside that had turned him into a little  
person. He would not say _child_ because he didn't want to admit it  
to himself that's what he was now.  
  
"It was just your every day, ordinary temple –"  
  
Jack cut him off by saying, "Danny, in my experience and _yours_ , we  
have yet to meet a temple that hasn't given us loads of trouble. Now  
my brain's startin' to hurt so what do you say to telling us what we  
need to do to get you big again."  
  
"I'm getting to that part if you'd stop with the interruptions, Jack.  
All I have to do is be near the altar at sunset. I think my hand was  
touching a particular symbol by the base of a statue. I'm sure I'll  
recognize it as soon as I see it."  
  
"Daniel… _touching?_ You are sooo dead, my friend. After all I've  
drilled into that thick skull of yours. You run off and what do you  
do? You _touch_ something. A *something* that could shrink a person.  
Ya see a theme running here do ya?"  
  
"Yes, Jack. I was a very bad boy and disobeyed one of your orders.  
I've paid the price and I'm sorry. _Now_ can we go make me big again?"  
  
"Er, Daniel?"  
  
"Yes, Sam."  
  
"What are you going to do about clothing when you change back?"  
  
"Oh… that." Daniel couldn't have gotten any redder had he been a plump  
tomato. The blush he sported spread from the top of his small head  
and ran down to the tip of his little toes. "I forgot about that  
part, Sam."  
  
"I'll grab something from one of the villager's children that will  
fit him. Let's finish this," said the colonel irritably.  
  
Before Daniel headed toward the alter, he did a smart pivot toward  
his friend and said, "Sir, yes, sir." He even managed a passable  
salute.  
  
Colonel O'Neill looked at the remainder of his team. "Kids nowadays  
just don't respect their commanding officers like they used too."  
  
Teal'c and Carter smirked at the colonel as he left quickly to  
retrieve some clothes for Daniel. They remained by the boy's side  
until their team leader returned. Then she and the Jaffa left to  
stand guard outside the temple until their young teammate became the  
young adult they all knew and loved.  
  
++++  
  
Twenty minutes later Colonel O'Neill emerged from the temple, his arm  
wrapped around one shaky, white-faced archaeologist. Daniel wore  
robes similar in style to what he used to war on Abydos.  
  
"It is good to see you restored to your former self, Daniel Jackson."  
  
"Thanks, Teal'c," the young man breathed shakily.  
  
"Nice outfit, Daniel," said Sam as she hugged the daylights out of  
him. Then she gave him a quick once over just to make sure he could  
make it back to the Stargate on his own steam. Then she gave her  
young friend's arm a gentle squeeze just for reassurance.  
  
"Enough already. I see an infirmary bed with Danny boy's name on it."  
  
"For once I'm looking forward to it." Daniel was still none too  
steady on his feet. "By the way, Jack, who'd you steal the robe from?"  
  
"Would you believe that it was hanging on a clothesline? And who said  
I stole it? We'll launder it and send it back through the gate gift  
wrapped with a thank you note attached."  
  
They laughed all the way back to the DHD.  
  
++++  
  
"Did you see that, Aaron?"  
  
The stunned children couldn't believe their eyes at seeing their new  
friend turned into an adult. They were too young yet to know the ways  
of their temple.  
  
"How is it possible?"  
  
"Tess, please! How should I know. You're always full of questions."  
  
"And you never seem to know the answers, Aaron. When Blue went in  
that temple he was our age. Do you think we –"  
  
"NO! It isn't for us, Tess."  
  
"How would you know?"  
  
"I just do. Come, let's go home."  
  
As the two youngsters left, they heard the unmistakable sounds of the  
great circle roaring to life. They knew then that Blue had gone  
home.  
  
The End


End file.
